Caterwauling

I woke up with one of those headaches that feel like someone’s driving a stake through my brain. You’d think they would have been wise and aimed it a bit lower — if it had gotten my heart, we’d all be put out of my misery.

I sit by my floor-to-ceiling window every morning, doing a little bit of work that would take a lot less time were I actually not still half-asleep. And I usually watch people on the street below.

One of my neighbors reminds me of me — built like me (poor thing), dresses like me (trendy jeans and shirts — I look like a freaking Old Navy ad on weekends). And I always notice that she looks, I don’t know, thinner on the weekends. Like we all stuff our pudgy pork roast asses into dress clothes and pantyhose all week. You can just tell how uncomfortable we are. I know I personally radiate tension when I’m in shoes that would best be used as a murder weapon instead of a self-torture device.

Don’t get me wrong — I love to play dress-up as much as (or even more than) the next girl. I like heels because I look better in them. I like skirts because at the right length, they too can add height. But I, and I suspect it’s true of my neighbor, look much better when there’s cleavage of any kind (boob or toe, not butt of course!) showing. It helps when there’s a little bit of skin to break up a sea of georgette and gabardine.

I’m not suggesting walking around in pasties (oh God no) but just a little freedom to let the skin breathe wouldn’t hurt matters. I feel so puritanical lately, that if I see a glimpse of someone’s skin like at their neck I think “Scandal!” GAWD. I really need to get out more.

While I’m complaining, I hate closed-toe shoes in general — dark shoes make me look shorter than I am (5’3″ and 3/4, babyee) and if they’re flat and closed-toe, I look like a pint-sized pudge muffin. Even though I wear a lot of black, it’s rare to see me in black shoes unless they’re strappy and wildly inappropriate. The pain of walking in them is worth it if you’re going to look good doing it!

Today’s horoscope: Evaluate your surroundings. Are you where you’re supposed to be? Could some old feelings of guilt or misplaced loyalty be keeping you chained to a situation that simply doesn’t fit anymore? Be honest.

No real comments on it. Just something that’s been niggling at me today. It’s sort of freeing, really. I have my reasons for doing what I do (and not doing other things). My visions are bigger than anyone can imagine. But there is some sort of, I don’t know, obligation if you will. To people, places and things. I’ve relinquished control in a big way to Fate and the powers that be.

Sometimes I think creative people get screwed in life. Now, I profess my love for my labrynth-like mind and spurts of brilliance that compensate for those other moments that are completely devoid of brainwaves. But what I fail to be able to do is motivate myself — I expect creativity and inspiration to come in time.

Boundaries elude me and I find myself daydreaming at work and thinking about work when I’m supposedly on “my” time. And that’s fine but I feel like I’m not accomplishing much of anything in either realm. But I’ve also got to force myself sometimes to be OK with not saving the world. I make myself nervous sometimes when I finish a day no closer to any goals I might have had — lofty goals at that.

I had one of those big “what if” moments the other day. What if I abandoned all decorum and restraint and reached out and shook the world off its axis. What would have happened? Am I more afraid that everything could turn to shit and life will spiral out of control, or am I not prepared for a situation in which everyone sits back and says, “I had no idea you could rock socks that way. What else do you have up your sleeve?”

Maybe I’m just afraid that I won’t take everyone’s breath away. And I couldn’t handle that particular aftermath.

“My hero said
You can’t hold the hand
Of a rock and roll man
But what if I can
What if I can?

What if I
Look to the sky
Check out the stars
How they shine
Into your eyes
They’re just like mine
Searching the darkness
For some kind of sign

Building our life
On the dreams we string together
Like Christmas lights.”

– Nina Gordon, “Christmas Lights”

Audio for this post would be very Homer Simpson-esque.

CakeLove is offering 30% off its cupcakes in October. It’s the only place in the world where you don’t feel ripped off when you pay three bucks a pop, but hell, now they’re $2. What’s not to love?

Short but sweet. Fewer questions but longer answers. And in case ya’ll didn’t notice, I like to ramble!

1. Comparing your life as it currently is to the way it was a year or two or five ago, are you more content? If so, why? If not, why?

My life has changed a lot, but not at all, in some respects. I’m still a workaholic who can’t prioritize a personal relationship to save my life. Maybe I just haven’t met the right person. I don’t think any of the past ones were, so I’m not looking back or anything. But yeah, there’s that definite void of a true tag-team partner in this crazy odyssey. I’ve just wised up and gotten past the “bad boys” and am now looking for better-quality people.

It’s strange insofar as the person I am. I feel like I’ve become more comfortable with who I am, but I’ve learned to hide her more efficiently. I think, to some degree, I’ve always worn my heart on my proverbial little sleeve, but I think that shirt went through the dry cleaner’s one too many times and that heart has sort of gone into hiding. I’m more anxious than I was years ago. I used to have this grand worldview that everything would work out in the end. And while, I know, I’m far from “The End,” I can’t help but wonder if this is intermission and if so, did I waste that time not working toward any solid goals? Because I didn’t expect to be so tired and even disenchanted at such a young age.

But that’s the thing. I’m disenchanted, of course, with lots of things. And not to complain about work, but it doesn’t afford me enough time to pursue non-work interests. So I have a very hard time defining my identity as something other than what it is in relation to my role there. (OK, here. I’m writing it at work because it’s 7 p.m. and I ain’t near done yet but I found a hole in my schedule wherein I can do some personal thinking.)

What I’ve found, to cope, is to have what I call built-in downtime. We don’t really hang out and do happy hours and stuff, but we do really enjoy each other on the team and if we can swing a few minutes to talk, we love it. So basically yeah, I goof off for a few minutes here and there during the day. It’s nice and it’s great for trust-building. But if I ruled the world, it’d be done in a bar instead. Which was what I did years ago.

So, am I more content? Not at all. I’m more restless. I know my life will unfold the way it is meant to, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing time away sometimes in that I want to get to the “good part” faster.

2. What do you hope the next year will bring? Do you expect things to more or less stay the same? Or do you see big changes? How do you feel about that?

If I didn’t have the hope that life would be better next year, I wouldn’t be here. Not to intimate in the least that I am suicidal, but I can absolutely see how someone would get to the point where they’re ready to end it all. Once you lose faith that there’s got to be something bigger and better out there, you don’t have anything left.

That said, realistically I see myself in the exact same place — job, apartment, rut — next year. But do I want to be? Oh hell no. I want to work less and play more. I want to be in love — really, truly, head-over-heels addicted to someone who’s equally enamored of me because they’d be nuts to let me get away. I want to rush home to either see that person or to enjoy the fact my apartment will have finally been unpacked/decorated/furnished. I want to call my friends and suggest going out because I haven’t been so supernaturally drained from work that I actually have something left to give to them at the end of the day or week.

I’m telling the universe that I want everything it has to offer. I’m tired of thinking that the things “everyone else” has are not meant for me. I want those “normal” things, too. I am capable of so much more than I’m doing and giving. And the right people will finally wise up and figure out how to tap into that potential and benefit from it. I’m not purposely holding out on anybody — all they have to do is ask.

3. What would your ideal life situation be? Do you feel that it’s within your grasp, or merely a pipe dream?

A perfect segue. I am very relational in nature. Big pictures are the only pictures I can deal with. Details bore me and routine frustrates me. Which is why I flit from job to job, and person to person, with ease. I interview each, exhaustively, and move on to the next day’s story.

But I’m tired of that. I want to get to know someone or something really, ridiculously well. I crave comfort. I hate having a meltdown and not knowing who, if anyone, to call. I hate having my car acting up and not feeling like there’s anyone I can contact for a ride if I needed one. I’ve gotten rid of the people who feel like I owe them my firstborn if they do me a menial favor, but that doesn’t leave many others. I’m fine with that, most days. But other days I wake up and go, yeah, I really wish I could just have a hug right now. A real one.

Here’s my pipe dream. I don’t sleep much in general, and never around anyone else. And I think y’all would be surprised how absolutely uninterested I’ve been in *that* not just lately, but for a long time now. Not to say that I’m not a sexual being. I am. TRUST ME on this. But I’ve done the emotionally detached thing for way too long. And I’m through. I want to care that this person is here in the morning. I want to not be plotting my getaway excuses in mid-thrust. I want to know that if I fall asleep, I haven’t “lost” the game. That’s a level of vulnerability I haven’t achieved yet. Maybe I never will. But I hope to. And I will probably fight it kicking and screaming, but that’s half the fun, I suppose!

I want a reason to go home at night. I want a reason to stay in a particular city. I want to be able to use my ridiculous overabundance of nurturing skills to give someone else everything it is that I also want for myself.

4. Ask me something.

At what point in your life do you think you would look at it and go, “Yeah, this is what I’ve been working my way toward”? What will you have achieved that you can say, “I did good, damn it”?

So I was having my traditional Monday morning panic attack, gulping down my last bit of sunshine and air before hitting the salt mines, when I decided I should remind myself of a much worse plane of existence. So, I fired up my ex-employer’s website, and lo and behold, I was rewarded.

A photo of the two laziest employees was displayed prominently on the front page. And in that, I took comfort that the poster children for that mess of a place were correctly chosen. They were trying to exile the one, but I see they are content to not even graze that limbo bar of mediocrity and put somebody in the position who can do something with it. The other assaulted me in a ladies’ room and everyone got mad at my boss for creating a hot fuss about it because they don’t like conflict over there, especially if it involves someone standing up for someone else.

They also have a place where you can send ideas. That cracked my shit up — when we asked for suggestion boxes and the like, we were laughed out of Dodge. They were afraid of what we might suggest — god forbid we solve a problem or ask to implement something low-cost and useful to improve morale. I’m convinced the e-mail address is going nowhere — I was going to suggest that they just close up shop and sell the building and refund the subscribers’ money, but I’m sure it would have just resulted in a big 404 error, just like my career there did!